Best story at State Open Wrestling a weighty issue

George

Published 7:00 pm, Sunday, February 27, 2011

There were a lot of great stories to come out of the 2011 State Open Wrestling Championships this past weekend, as there are almost every year. History has taught wrestling fans to expect the unexpected at the Open.

But for my money, the best story to come out of the New Haven Athletic Center Friday and Saturday was Kevin Spence of Plainville High School.

Spence wrestled in the 215-pound weight class most of the season, although he weighed between only 200 and 205 pounds. Which means most of the time he was giving away 10 to 15 pounds to his opponent.

But when the Class M state tournament rolled around, Spence moved up to the 285-pound heavyweight class and gave away, in many cases, as much as 80 pounds to opponents.

There was a method to his madness, however.

“Class M was stacked at 215 pounds. There were a lot of good wrestlers,” Planville wrestling coach Doug Fink said. “We thought his best chance to make the State Open was to wrestle at 285.”

The top four finishers in each weight class at each of the four state meets qualified for the State Open. It turns out Spence’s gamble paid off when he finished third at Class M to qualify for the Open.

The best was yet to come, however. At the State Open, Spence won his opening-round match Friday, a 3-1 decision, before losing later that night in the second round to eventual Open champion Joe Demichele of Daniel Hand.

Spence bounced back, however, to post back to back wins in the wrestleback round Saturday morning, including a pin against the Class S state champ in his second match. That assured him a spot in the final six and a medal.

But wait, it gets better. His third match would decide whether he advanced to the third/fourth place consolation match or the fifth/sixth place consolation. Spence pulled out a thrilling 4-2 overtime decision against Bristol Central’s Donald Sanderson, which earned him a spot in the top four and clinched a berth in this weekend’s New England tournament at the same New Haven facility.

The fact Spence lost his consolation match and finished fourth was secondary. He was going to the New England tournament.

But the back to back state meets were not the first time Spence took on 285-pound opponents this season.

“He wrestled there a few times (in the regular season) when we needed him to,” Fink said.

“He went about 7-1,” Rusty Spence added. “The funny thing is he also wrestled 215 last year, but he actually weighed 189. He couldn’t beat the guy we had there so he wrestled up a weight class at 215.”

So he was used to wrestling opponents heavier than him. In fact, what made his New England tournament-clinching win against Sanderson even more impressive was Sanderson had to shed a few pounds to make weight at the morning weigh-in. That means he probably weighed close to 290 several hours later when he wrestled Spence, who was giving away somewhere in the vicinity of 85 pounds.

It didn’t matter, though as Spence gutted out a win and is headed to the New England tournament with a 44-7 overall record.

So just for the record, whose idea was it for Kevin Spence to wrestle a weight class up?

“It was his idea,” Fink said pointing to Spence’s father. “But we left it up to Kevin and he said he wanted to do it. I wasn’t going to make that call just in case it didn’t go right.”

Not to worry. Turns out it went just fine and as a result Kevin Spence is heading to the New England tournament.